Mother/Son Dance Suggestions

[J Cunningham]

Hello all,

I'm getting married in a couple weeks now . I'm getting pretty excited for it! Right now, I'm trying to figure out a good song for the mother/son dance, but I'm having trouble thinking of one. We have a live band playing that specializes in Celtic and Scottish traditional music. We're interested in a song that this band could play that would be good for a mother/son dance song. If anybody has any ideas, I'd love to hear them!

Cheers.

[J Cunningham]

I'm leaning toward this one, by the way. A good classic that we could dance to for a minute before opening up the floor to others to join:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hKvB3g3HEPQ

Will You Go Lassie or The Wile Mountain Thyme

[OC Richard]

I've piped at hundreds of weddings, and when they ask me to play for the "first dance" I play waltzes.

In the Highland bagpipe repertoire there are hundreds of tunes which sound like waltzes and perfectly function as waltzes. When non-pipers write these tunes out in sheet music they write them as waltzes, in 3/4 time.

The strange thing is that Highland pipers write these tunes out in 6/8 time and call them marches. Usually they call them "slow marches".

So if people look through the published Highland pipe collections they'll almost never come across a tune called a "waltz" yet there are hundreds of tunes which are, in all but name, waltzes.

For the first dance at weddings I'll play a some of the following (I play as long or as short as needed)

Skye Boat Song (due to the popularity of the TV programme Outlander this tune has become widely known amongst the general public, and a favourite)

The Mist Covered Mountains/Chi Mi na Morbheanna (this is played for dancing in the film Local Hero)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ouqy4UnJjQo

My Home/Mo Dhachaidh

The Highland Cradle Song

Hearken My Love/An Chuinn Leannain

The Mingulay Boat Song

Leaving Lismore

Loch Rannoch

Loch Duich

[J Cunningham]

Excellent, Richard! I'll check those out. Thank you!

[MacCathail]

Stan Hamilton played "Auld Scotch Mither Mine" as a waltz although it was often sung rather more slowly as the egregiously sentimental lyrics would suggest.

(You may want to sound the lady out first; if she knows the lyrics she may not appreciate being described as wrinkled and grey.)

Cheers,

-John-